Nearly half of people who die by suicide saw a healthcare provider in the month before their death. Many were already receiving treatment.

That statistic challenges one of our most common assumptions about mental illness: that psychiatric tragedies happen because people never ask for help.

The upcoming Lindsay Clancy trial raises an even more difficult question.

What happens when someone is already receiving extensive psychiatric care—and a catastrophic psychiatric emergency still isn’t recognized?

In this episode, Dr. Suzette Glasner—licensed clinical psychologist and scientist at UCLA—examines the Lindsay Clancy case through the lens of clinical psychology rather than true crime. Instead of asking whether Lindsay Clancy is guilty or innocent, she explores what this case may reveal about the limits of current psychiatric risk assessment.

The episode examines the parallels between missed suicide risk and missed postpartum psychiatric emergencies, the critical differences between postpartum OCD and postpartum psychosis, why clinicians routinely screen for suicide but may not be trained to assess risk of harm to children, and the warning signs that families and healthcare professionals should recognize when a psychiatric emergency is unfolding.

Watch the full episode here:

Chapters

0:00 Intro — A Statistic That Should Change How We Think About Psychiatric Tragedy

1:12 Lindsay Clancy’s Mental Health Treatment Timeline

3:27 Why Being in Treatment Doesn’t Always Mean Someone Is Safe

6:00 The Blind Spot: Why Clinicians May Not Assess Risk to Children

7:54 Understanding Filicide Risk in Postpartum Psychiatric Illness

8:40 Postpartum OCD vs. Postpartum Psychosis: Why the Difference Matters

10:54 What Families Should Watch For—and When to Seek Emergency Help

13:28 The Lindsay Clancy Trial: The Insanity Defense Explained

15:27 Why This Case Matters Beyond One Family

📩 Questions or topic requests: AskDrGlasner@gmail.com

🧩 More from Dr. Glasner: https://drglasner.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drglasner.substack.com